The Minority in Parliament has asked the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Ghana Cocoa Board (COCOBOD), Joseph Boahen Aidoo, to apologise to former President John Dramani Mahama.
The demand stems from what the Minority said was a false statement made by Mr Boahen Aidoo regarding Ghana’s 2023/24 cocoa forward sales.
In a press release issued in Accra yesterday, the Minority, led by the Ranking Member on the Food and Agriculture Committee in Parliament, Mr Eric Opoku insisted the COCOBOD CEO erred when he questioned Mr Mahama’s understanding of how the producer price of cocoa is determined.
The Minority maintained that the former President was accurate in his criticism of the recent announcement of a GH¢1,308 producer price per bag of cocoa.
“It has now emerged that the CEO of COCOBOD told a deliberate falsehood in his desperate attempt to justify the rip-off that the Akufo-Addo/Bawumia government has meted out to our hard-working cocoa farmers,” the statement said.
“According to documents submitted to Parliament by COCOBOD as part of processes for the approval of the syndicated loan for cocoa purchases for the 2023/24 crop season, it was disclosed that only 36.2 per cent of our cocoa for this season was sold forward and used as collateral to secure the $800 million syndicated loan,” the statement said.
The statement said the COCOBOD CEO was not competent to challenge the NDC flagbearer on issues related to the cocoa sector.
“The Minority group wishes to state for the records that Joseph Boahen Aidoo has lied to cocoa farmers and the entire nation. He had no basis whatsoever to impugn ill motive into what was a statement of fact by the respected former President. He therefore owes President Mahama, hardworking cocoa farmers, and the entire nation an unqualified apology,” it said.
It would be recalled that, shortly after the announcement of the farm-gate price of cocoa for the 2023/24 cocoa season, former President Mahamacriticised the government for shortchanging cocoa farmers by pegging the farm-gate price at a paltry GH¢1,308, despite a 46-year record-high surge in the world market price.
However, in an open letter to former President Mahama dated September 12, 2023, the CEO of COCOBOD, Joseph Boahen Aidoo, took issues with President Mahama.
He questioned President Mahama’s understanding of how the producer price of cocoa is determined and claimed that the former President erroneously used $3,600 as the world market price to calculate the producer price.
In that statement, the COCOBOD CEO claimed that consistent with practice, Ghana’s cocoa beans are “mostly sold forward,” and that “the 2023/24 crop was sold between October 2022 and March 2023 at international prices; ranging between $2,200 per ton and $2,400 per ton.”
BY TIMES REPORTER
